This was so **** to wake up to this morning. Abroad in the new year looks like the go. Grind house time!

Kinda funny they pretend they would ban poker to protect gamblers from the sites. We need laws to protect us from governments imo. They do way more harm to society and our environment than any of us will ever do by simply playing a card game at home with our own money.

Always hate seeing these threads

Thoughts, Thailand, Mexico, New Zealand, any other suggestions?

heres a link to a report from 5 days ago from liberal regarding so called "problem gambling"

http://www.liberal.org.au/helping-problem-gamblers

wonder if these dolts even know stars have responsible gambling options including being able to set limits of buy ins, tables played, temporary exclusion and permanent exclusion.

Does anyone know if Malcom Turnbull has an opinion on this, he might be someone good to contact, I wonder if he could influence Abbot anyway?

@OP - I think you are scaremongering a bit saying only three weeks of poker left only, even if they were to do something to stop online poker, it would be part of a wider gambling package which tackles sports, and pokies too, which could take quite a while, there will definitely be more important issues imo in front of that, and hopefully by then, they could sway their view to some alternate, i dont care if they ban **** sites like merge and titan poker and stuff, just leave stars and ftp and I will be happy.

Hope this thread dies in a grease fire but cost of living in Thailand is pretty good

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living...ayCurrency=USD

WOW! holy dick that article makes me sick. This appears to be much more serious then I first thought. I just had a look at some gamboling sites, they have Abbott as a ~90%+ fav to win the election, I didn't realize he was crushing this hard, I thought he was the underdog. tbh now it is looking very GG to me. 90% of the time is fker is going to get in and within a year or two everything will change... maybe a best case scenario would be (stars.au? or some of that ******edness i hear about 1 tabling donkements?) But can't see how they are going to allow stars to operate the way it is atm when they right filth like this on their site...



kl;l;kjl;hjl

"ensuring Australians are protected from illegal online gambling operators"

dear god. IF YOUR GOING TO TAKE A GIANT DUMP ON OUR FACE, ATLEAST SAY YOU'RE DOING SO. DON'T PRETEND THE DUMP ON THE FACE IS FOR OUR PROTECTION

Well theyre in the stages of passing the GCSB bill in New Zealand which allows the goverment to monitor internet / phone activity a la CISPA in the States, so you might want to consider ruling New Zealand out.

Fingers crossed Abbott is going to be too busy privatising everything, giving $75,000 to rich women for 6 months maternity leave and sucking Gina Rinehart's toes to change anything about online poker if-(God Forbid) he gets in.

coalition are 1.06 to win on betfair

Not good.

So how hard would a VPN be to setup?

Or labour shilling

Just realised how much I hate Rudd that I'm still prepared to vote liberal to see the back of him.

How this country can even be considering to elect the unelectable Tony Abbott baffles me.

...and that's before we even get to...

I think I'm more surprised that we are still playing on stars and ftp. Would have thought we'd have had that taken away from us a while ago. You know it's coming but you don't know when.

Voting for Abbott because you don't like Rudd is like eating poop because you don't like spinach.

I hope the next government does something regarding gambling. It's pretty pathetic that every family restaurant has to have 2x as many Pokie machines as they do seats in the dining area.

With that said though, Poker isn't really gambling unless you're an idiot. It IS a skill game with a hint of luck, not the other way around.

OP get some better info, abbott has never said he will ban online gambling he will just get it regulated so that he can tax it, simply because online gambling generates far to much tax revenue for the government to even think about banning it. Nick Xenophon is just a ****wit who takes things to the far extreme when all that is needed is some common sense.

How much are the pokies to do with this? Do they give poker a bad image in Australia? Maybe the focus of opposition should include support of limits on these pre-determined no-skill machines (I presume they are analogous to the fruit machines in the UK). Not that it'll ever happen. I understand those things are everywhere. In the UK it was nigh on 10 years ago when fruities where banned from unlicensed places like chip shops. Are there similar restrictions on pokies?

+1

Tony Abbott (2012) “…every smartphone is a poker game and that's just not on as far as the Coalition is concerned. It is a dark cave into which people can so easily retreat and there they are beyond help”.

The Coalition’s ‘Policy to help problem Gamblers’, (August 2013):
“Labor’s review of the Interactive Gaming Act proposed removing restrictions on online poker – a proposal that would have turned every smart-phone in Australia to a legal, handheld casino.”

“There are ongoing community concerns that the current laws prohibiting certain online gambling, such as online poker and casino games, are not being enforced… The Coalition will investigate methods of strengthening the enforcement of the IGA and ensuring Australians are protected from online gambling operators.”

The IGA makes online poker illegal. Abbott's stated policy position is to enforce the IGA.

so online poker is illegal at this time?

Yes.

meh it's kinda like the uigea, kinda but not rly/GREY

It is illegal for sites to offer Australians online poker.

However, it is perfectly legal for Australians to play.

Since it came into law in 2001, it has never been enforced.

Right now my phones a legal, handheld TAB. *shrugs*

Bless my sportsbet app.